Lord knows I can empathize with the sentiment that drives the middle-aged parents featured in yesterday’s New York Timesstory : “So Eager for Grandchildren, They’re Paying the Egg-Freezing Clinic.” I, too, am eager for grandchildren: 58 years old, with two grown daughters, and with a grandbaby lust so startling it can take my breath away.

But would I offer to pay for my daughters to freeze their eggs? Not anymore. Because I think it might already be too late (they’re 32 and 28) to make enough difference to justify the risk and the expense.

In her Times article, reporter Elissa Gootman writes about women between ages 35 and 39 freezing their eggs. This represents the national average age for egg freezing, which is 37.4 — but that’s already way too old. At least that’s what I think. Sam disagrees, and she and I debate the issue today on the Times‘ Motherlode blog.

Broaching the subject of egg freezing — or childbearing decisions in general — is the most delicate of all parent-grown child conversations, one that writer Rachel Lehmann-Haupt calls “the postmodern, adult birds-and-the-bees talk.”

I guess that’s the talk Sam and I are having now. You can read all about it here.